Kill To Licence

I have come to the conclusion that the City of Cape Town’s motor vehicle registration and licensing department is not so much a department as it is a bat-eared, clock-watching post-nasal drip sitting in a padded cubicle eating a cream donut and practising his/her signature with the sharp end of a spark plug/mascara pencil.

All indications point to this being the case after I attempted to renew the licence on my Land Rover. This is not as impressive as it sounds. It’s not one of those gay Land Rovers with electric windows and air con. It’s the other kind. The masculine one.

If Rommel had managed to get his hands on a few of these, we would all be speaking German today.

My other car, you may recall, slipped into a coma after a gang of supakak assassins operating out of Fish Hoek bungled the job. I recently decided to pull the plug on my beloved Hyundai after real mechanics told me he would never drive again.

In the last few weeks, members of the constabulary have on several occasions taken it upon themselves to remind me, in writing, that my licence disc had expired. Each reminder will cost me R600. I am speaking hypothetically, of course. Like many of you, I pay my fines with the same diligence Blade Nzimande accords to higher education.

Eventually I could no longer endure watching traffic officers take an hour to spell my name and paid R549 for a new disc.

The City of Cape Town was quick to take my money and almost as quick to tell me that they wouldn’t be giving me the disc until I … well, the bat-eared half-wit says it so much more eloquently than I ever could:

“The vehicle licence disk for the Rover was not printed due to the Hyundai Elantra that’s licence has expired 2012-04-30.Please note that all your vehicle’s is registered on your ID number, automatically if one vehicle’s licence disk has expired the other wont print.In order for the Rovers licence disk to print the Hyundai’s licence must be paid, scrapped then you need to request for a refund on the licence or the vehicle must be scrapped.The bank is still the title holder of the Hyundai.”

I care not what atrocities you visit upon the English language, nor am I concerned about your clumsy attempts at extortion, but please do not tell me that the bank owns a car I bought second-hand 14 years ago.

If I am in contravention of one of our nugatory laws, then I shall take my medicine like a man. I shall take it – hopefully it will be mildly hallucinogenic – and, like so many other malfeasants in this country, proceed directly to the Constitutional Court so they may remove the stain upon my name and allow me to run for president.